Day 1 Nutrition /Healthy Eating Camp

Morning started today earlier that I have been accustomed to lately, still in pain, still struggling in the a.m. However, this day is the first working day for our Summer Nutrition Camp. Our kids moved in to University of Chicago yesterday afternoon and this morning we woke them, got them, going and walked our students the 6 blocks to the dinning hall. They think they hated the walk but I am the one in pain. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone of these kids are walking slower than me. I can't keep pace with everyone but these are healthy teenager that need to get on the ball.

This is my first time working this camp. I'm not completely sure about why I didn't participate last year, but I think I wanted to establish myself better with my permanent student body. Last year's Summer session was only my second session at my school.

Their safety and sanitation class is beginning shortly, and I will post again later today.

Spring Flurries

While this may sounds like a weather report, it is not, and Chicago often has snow in Spring. What I am referring to is the storm of change and work tied into our programming during the Spring sessions. The last month or more has been fantastically busy and rewarding. My last session ended near the end of May and due to all the extra work needed, it became difficult to make all of the appointments.

Scholarship competitions, fundraisers, meetings, professional development, interviews for Summer term, planning, syllabus modification, more meetings, doctor appointments, medical issues, orchestra and band concerts, field trips, and the closing of my own kids schooling for the year. Phew.

Now things can slow down a bit and leave me to do some catching up. The first thing on my list was to catch up on some missed sleep. Recharging is essential. These last weeks proved to be telling me that I am a bit more fragile than I'd like to admit.

Some hard work comes with the satisfaction of knowing that you didn't let it beat you in the end. Some hard work comes with little visible evidence of success. And some hard work doesn't pay off right away, they are the long-term gains that manifest over lots of years. I have been asked if I thought that teaching culinary at this level was harder than working in the industry, quick and without hesitation, my answer was yes.

There isn't a single parent that hasn't questioned their skill based upon the child's advancement or success despite the fact that a lot of things that happen along a child's life, especially in teenage years that may have nothing to do with parental input. Years and years later, most of the successful adults, will say that their parental influence was positive and necessary, even when the adult may have dropped out of school or had a teenage pregnancy, or any other negative impact on life that we can all agree makes life much harder to be successful.

I count it all profitable to gain even the smallest shift in a students opinion, taste, or concept of the world at large. I dance when a kid goes from "that's nasty" to "wow, I like that".  The work can take a long time, can be hard to do, requires that I trust my kids in class and that they trust me. I have to position myself somewhere between a parental role, a type of friendship, a teacher, and a wise elder in order to do what I do successfully. This work is also about how the student sees themselves and their future.

I have always began each term with asking the kids to write about their life goals. Those kids who have been in my class in multiple times, have had the answers on the page turn from "I don't know" to "I'd like to become _____". I have heard, and witnessed, kids begin to take small steps to change what they eat, how they project themselves, how they see themselves, how they expect certain reactions from me and how we interact. To have a student start off with no idea who they want to be and have no care about what they eat, change towards a new image and shoot for much higher goals, it is all worth the effort.

I have set a personal goal with this blog and related podcast, having a regular scheduled time table, so when I have to miss days, I get a bit hard on myself, but I am working on letting go of negative self-talk.

Spring is all about new growth and return of better weather, a renewal. Rebirth. Imagine, as we all post pictures about graduations, proms, and Spring weddings, that we are all just Spring flowers nestled under the cold blankets of winter, just aching for Spring rains to melt off our heaviness and allow us to bloom.

Master chefs, Exec. Chef training, and other advanced training...

Long ago, when Jesus was a boy, there were only a few culinary educations that a student could attain without going overseas to Paris or London therefore I, like many others, took the routes that were available at the time. As I worked in the industry, longer and longer, I began to come across chefs who held titles that I had never heard of, Certified Executive Chef.  An organization called the American Culinary Foundation seemed to be at the heart of this accreditation.

ACF was founded by three chefs in New York to help promote culinary education, offer certifications and training, networking and the like. Here in Chicago, the ACF is getting more popular but as a hospitality industry worker for the last 20 plus years, it has only been within the last few years that I have noticed chefs using and working within this organization.

No matter where or when you receive your educational background that is focused in our industry, what you come away with is really determined by you as the student. I can take three kids to train and mentor, and after we are done, I will see three different skill levels within the students. Our industry is very skill based, and no matter who you are taught by, your skill level is truly your own. I say this, to many students, don't base your selection of schools based upon the price, famous chef instructors, or any other tangible matrix, but do so based upon your motivation and drive, and what you want to do with your career. What do I mean? It can get very expensive, well it has gotten in the last few years, seeking a culinary education. The popularity boom of chefs and the creation of the celebrity chef has opened many new schools who offer courses, certificates, and degrees in culinary.

No matter what is taught, and by who, the student's ability will grow with time and coaching.  If a student enrolls with no cooking experience,  they are somewhat behind than other students, but their raw ability can propel them to the top of the class. I entered into a culinary college with a very small population and without a huge reputation, 90% of what I do well, I learned from repetitive practice on-the-job.

The only advice I can give the aspiring chefs out there, study, practice, practice, practice. A school can teach technique and a foundation of skills. It is up to the chef to take off and sore. No two chefs have the skill or styles even after the same training. It takes time to realize what it is that makes you special and the only way to find it is to listen to customer and management critiques. I say this because if you are anything like me, most chefs only focus on the mistakes of a project, while other eyes see the glory. I am my own worse critic. I spend, literally, hours on a cake project and when I have stopped I can only see those things that could have been done better or those aspects that I would have liked to change, so often I am pleasantly surprised at the positive reactions of my clients. Go figure.

I am a huge supporter of higher educations. In my family, there was never any language of doubt about attending a college. It was always "when you go to college" not "if you go". I also know that not every person is suited to pursuing a PhD in philosophy. Trade skill are still needed and teaching programs are still required even with our nation's trending towards a intellectual model. Handcrafts will always be in demand.  

The best chef that I have worked for was one without any higher education. This titan of pastry had 40 plus years at the Palmer House. He began as a dishwasher and worked his way up to Exec. Pastry Chef. My chef was hardworking and hard on his staff, not in a mean fashion or abusive, he had one standard for us all, "Good work that is Palmer House good." We worked everything from butter, sugar, flour. We didn't use pre-made or mixes ever. The best days in that kitchen were days were we all worked in symphony and chef had nothing to complain about or correct. I learned a lot while there, including my passion for real scratch baking.

Chefs are broken before they are made, and the best instructors, will help students to build upon what they know as they teach them new tools in their toolboxes. Pursue your passion vigorously and wisely. Practice is the best teachers in this business and whenever you get to practice, especially with someone above your skill level, take it.

A chef has a lot of plates to spin, human resources issues, financial duties, order management, licencing, insurance, schedules, transportation, delivery, receiving, inventory management, vendors, networking, client requests, billing and invoicing, and all of this before the creation of sale items. We love what we do, no one would do this if they didn't, and we all take on much more work than can be done in a 8 hour workday. 

Whinny Baby

Today, I am a whinny baby. What I mean by this is, I am not feeling my strongest. The to-do list is long and the money is short. My medical condition isn't helping. So I have a lack of drive and a deep desire to nap. This isn't a good look for chef.

When I had my full strength I worked hard, fiercely in fact. Work and went to school full-time, worked and raised my kids, worked to support my family, but now I feel less than half of my strength is gone.

Fatigue and pain are my daily companions. My war cries are barely a whisper these days. I am glad that I made a choice to teach. I like it and while the class can be mentally draining, I am not abusing my physical strength nearly as much I did to make others rich.

I have been missing social obligations due to a lack of energy and/or pain. Urgh... I am tired even writing this post. All that I can manage today is to get out some emails. Fibromyaglia wins today.... thus far.

Argh.... what a weekend!

I make no excuses as to why I have slipped off of my daily post routine and I will get back on schedule very soon. Writing this regularly is not a habit of mine, I have tried time and again, but never really succeeded.

My fibromyalgia and my work schedule nearly put me back in the emergency room. It seems that when I attempt to feel better AND get some work done, like I once could, I end up in a flair up. In my case, the piece of me that is most effected is my digestion system. I avoid gluten, which helps a lot, and I try to always have a snack handy when I am away from home, but not all plans work to my good.

I am discovering what is referred as "fribro fog" where the memory is effected either by the condition or by the medications taken to treat the condition, which includes opiates. I made a mistake that I never ever do, I forgot to write down a client's order. Luckily, everything worked out but it isn't like me to handle things this way.

I, once again, am experiencing sleepless nights battling my aches and pains. Having gaps in memory isn't good at all. It's hard to keep your word, when you can't remember what was discussed.

In the realm of my teaching career, last week went very well. We had a successful site visitation, the high school kids did very well on their Cajun meal of blackened catfish, dirty rice, king cake and banana foster.

There was no podcast scheduled for this weekend and despite wanting to put one together, I did not push for someone to interview. I though about just posting solo but resting seems to be the order of today. Strength, courage, and wisdom. New levels to be yet achieved.

Conflict in the workplace

No matter the industry or setting, conflict of opinion, hostility, jealousy, and any other reason, can rise up and slow down progress. There is always a lot of effort to satisfy customers demands so often their really isn't time or energy left to settle interpersonal conflicts between employees. 

When I was a newbie in the industry, and barely able to drink, I experienced some prejudice at the workplace probably because some of the adults I was working with, and supervising, didn't take me serious, and some thought that I was just there to be cute.... nope. Then, of course, the minority girl issues, the chef life is dominated by white males, and when you are not reflective of the group, you can see or feel them test you or minimize you. There is a time frame in which chefs attempt to find out what you are made of, if you can take a joke, keep up with them on the bench, or be apart of the team both in and out of the kitchen. 

Once you have been tried and proven worthy/capable, often times you are knee deep with your crew bailing each other out until the race is won, only to be back at it again tomorrow. Even the best of brigades can have spurs up against each other from time to time. Bold personalities and workloads can force chefs to bit at each other about the little things and the bigger things. Most of the time individual production levels can bushel features because one or more on the team feel as if they are making up for someone's lack of accurate and usable work.

When tempers flare up in the kitchen, and they do, the big chef ego can get in the way of productive conversations about the problem. Small things become skyscrapers and tempers can fly very quickly. What shouldn't ever happen is that chefs are allowed to make their issue personal. When there are tactical issues, production issues, work overloads, painting a fellow chef as a villain only makes corrections harder, sometimes near impossible. No one is a saint, or even perfect, and serving customers and the community isn't a easy thing to do in the best of circumstances.

Chefs are not one dimensional cartoon cutouts who only exist in the kitchen, they have families, love affairs, some within the kitchen, economical demands, health issues, bills, and in the worst cases, chemical dependencies and alcohol problems. It is a harder life than working at a office, physically, but mentally its no punk either. We chefs are problem solvers drawn towards the chaos, sounds, smells, and noise of a commercial kitchen. We live for the oohs and ahhs of our clients, we get to be apart of the best moments of other's lives. The special night out, the anniversary dinner, the communion lunch or Sunday lunch after church is when we are on-duty and striving to make a nice day into a great one. 

Chefs often sweat, bleed, and get burned to please the customer. We block out of our minds lots of things like tired, hungry, hurting, and sleepy, chasing our high of choice, happy customers. In my new phase of my career, chef instructor, I consider it a victory when I show the kids a new vegetable that they like or get them to change even the smallest amount of their diet for the better. I teach in two neighborhoods that have a lot of challenges, but while I am their, I am working with them, creating a safe place, new exciting food, nutrition knowledge, and a hot meal. My students even earn a small stipend. It has never been easy but rewarding.

I have had to settle their drama, help their understanding, and redirect them to positive outlets. I can not afford to allow dissent in my class as it will deteriorate quickly, destroy our nurturing environment, and impede learning. The conflicts in my classroom are just the same as in the workplace, they often arise when egos get bruised.  Most of all conflicts, at the heart, are about folks' feelings, they don't feel respected, appreciated, or feel they are being taken advantage of them by others. The work is the work. It never goes away and you don't want it to go because then your paycheck goes away too. 

I have worked next to some that I literally thought about running them down with my car, but I still did my job. I love my job but I have not loved everyone I did it with nor every circumstances that I have had to my job. You can plan your butt off in the kitchen and dinning areas but it means nothing once the doors are open and the guest come in and get seated. I have had to deal with persons without much love for their fellow people, I have been spoken to totally disrespectfully, I have with the sweetest of persons, I have dealt with kids who were out of control, kitchen disasters, missing workers, injuries, the need to call the police to have people removed, I even had a wedding banquet happen that made to seating chart totally worthless and the guest count become so large that we had more people than glasses for drinking. 

Anything can happen and it usually does. The last thing anyone needs getting in the way of successful event is a coworker making it harder to accomplish than the customers did that day. A good leader can straighten things out so that no one gets hurt, most people just need to be heard, but there can be only a few environments more dangerous than a kitchen to have a conflict boil over. 

Culinary and Chemistry

As I sit in the school library, it becomes painfully obvious that cooking and chemistry is one and the same.  Cooking is more applied science than others courses of study, add in a bit of alchemy and you are square in the middle of chef life.

 

The same skills of formulations, testing, observation, and trail and error, ever present in the kitchens all over the universe.  Even in cases where the chef or cook is cooking from a recipe, all of the steps apply, as good cooks never rely on an untested source when feeding their audience.  Some of us can review a written recipe and spot of it is accurate or not. Others must try it to discover the faults or the accuracy. In either case, mistakes can teach you more than your triumphs in the kitchen.   

The ability to test, modify, mix and remix, ingredients and turn the simple into the worthiest of dishes, let alone into art, is what chefs strive to achieve. Science and art culminate into a type of jazz, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The best of us climb to towering heights and can earn a type of immortality that gives lasting effects on the culinary world. Julia Child will always be with us through her teachings, books, and television broadcasts. The ladders she built will be scaled for generations to come.

We whisk up acids and bases, apply heat or cold, emulsify, extract, concentrate, dilute, expand, divide, and blend, all to achieve the awe inspiring creations. We live for the oohs and awwws that are created by our work. We lose sleep, forgo stopping to tend to our own needs, work odd hours, long hours, and miss out on the simple things, like events we are invited to attend, and even daylight. We arrive in the dark hours of the night and leave again after the sun has gone for the day. We talk more with our co-workers then our families and friends, some times. We can share our story with our loved ones but often they can't really understand who and what we have endured during our work. 

Sometimes I have encountered people who either don't understand what it is we do, or they act as if our work isn't important or not a profession like their's. The amounts of learning and training needed to work at my level can be greater than many other profession and less than others. It is often hard to adequately describe what we do, and how we do it, as many who cook think that they can do my job, or that it can't be that hard, or couldn't possibly take the amount of  hours that it really does. Sometimes my commitment to my work can require me to miss some events in my own children's life for the sake of other celebrations or needs. I don't like that aspect but my food magic show is what puts a roof over their heads.

Mixing magic with nutrition, art with taste, building constructs and designs for the eye, enticements for the nose, and specialties of taste can be very demanding. I love my work and I love teaching kids to think about and improve their options within the kitchen, that can improve their lives and the lives of others around them. 

Culinary and Mathematics

In my travels, I have learned a lot of different things. One of the hurdles that my students struggle with is mathematics in the kitchen. There are others equally difficult and important that I will confront later.

Kitchen math is relatively simple but it is painfully obvious that there are deficits when training young folks. It's the fractions that trip them up. It's frustrating to them and to me that they are in high school and stumble over this stuff. My 6th - 8th grade group are better at it than my older kids and I believe that the quality of their education is a bit better.

Multiplying and dividing fractions, and dealing with 3 tsp equal 1 Tbsp, the rules of non-metric calculations are able to confuse the best of us. I hit them consistently with kitchen math, both on paper and in practical usage.  I am disappointed that the movement to change to the metric system has been extremely slow. Metric system is much simpler to calculate as the entire system is base 10.

With metric system calculations, a quick glance is typically all you need to do in order to scale a recipe, however, America has been very resistant to a change over. Many of our citizens that use the metric system know how to use it because of our drug culture. Believe it or not, grams and kilos are predominate measurement in drug trafficking but when cooking you have to deal with 1/3, 2/3, 128 oz equal 1 gallon, and 16 oz or 2 cups equal 1 pint.


I have been an advocate for conversion to the metric system since high school chemistry class, a thousand years ago, because of its simplicity. Unfortunately, we have not converted and all of cookbooks use the old system so we cannot get accustom to use of metric. We buy 2 liters of soda pop but not 100 grams of sugar, for example.

Our system is the one we inherited from the British Empire where 1 foot was the measurement based upon the length of the King's foot. Americans do not use the weight measurement of stones but rather pounds. Horses are still measured in hands tall and we do still use peck, bushels, yards, and acres. All are old British royal family measurements. I could understand the use of this system when there wasn't an alternative, but metric is far superior and simplistic, so why not adopt the better system?

Teaching at CPS

As you may know, I teach at a community center and a Chicago Public School. This year, the Chicago Teachers Union, have been working without a contract for a year and the possibility of a strike is very high. I am supportive of whatever decision they make and I will not be crossing the picket line, if it comes down to it.

I don't teach in a effluent neighborhood or at a selective enrollment school. I attended a select enrollment school and the difference is striking. I find myself asking, in my mind, was I as bad or clueless as the kids I teach. I am still not sure of my answer, but I do know that my kids are experiencing things I did not when I was in high school.

The kids I teach are negatively impacted by drugs, both by using and viewing the effects, incarcerated loved ones,  gangs, and abuse. They don't have it easy. A lot of my students have deficits in math, reading, and logic. Following instructions can be difficult to almost impossible. I see anger issues, rebellion against authority, a lack of parental support, a hosts of mental illness. I tend to arrive early to my school so that I may get a glimpse of what is going on on campus and check on the kids I teach in the event that they have been disciplined since I saw them. I totally support any action that the staff feels the need to take and if any of my students are in trouble, I do not allow them to come to my class for the day.

So what's my point? I knew, but now I really know, what teachers are up against and how vital it is to receive a quality education. I have met a 6th grader who cannot read. I am heartbroken at least once a week and when I had an offer to work just for the center at a higher rated than I receive in my role for CPS, I couldn't feel right about leaving them with no class at all, as getting a replacement instructor would have been too hard, I stayed to help make the needed changes for that programs success.

I am in support of the teachers union, and the teacher's efforts to make a safe place for their students to learn. I will not cross the picket line nor will I just throw the baby out with the bathwater and adopt a negative thought about the teacher's being selfish, or however else that they get painted negatively.

  

Angry Mama Bear

Yesterday, I hear upsetting news about one of my high school students who was grievously attacked during the school day on campus. She will be missing a few days of school because of this. I will spare you the details other than she suffered a broken cheek bone.

At first, the story spurred me to be inquisitive but after hearing the details from a member of our security staff, I got upset as if the same injury had happened to my own birthed children. I can't even find the words that are adequate enough to express myself.

This population of kids already has a lot to deal with from the neighborhood, the schools, the politics of our city, the rampant stupidity and injustice that is pervasive in their lives. This incident is have a bit overwhelmed as she is a likable sort who really doesn't bother anyone. To have her face hurt like this is such a piss-off.

I am going to leave this here before I upset again.....  

How I got my life back....

When I began working in the industry I was 18 years old, in the age of dinosaurs, and I committed to working hard, working long hours, and never turning down an opportunity to learn. I was successful in my pursuits as the hospitality work is never ending.

I was lucky that one day one of my professors at Roosevelt University took me by the hand to the Palmer House Hotel where he was the Food and Beverage Director. He set a meeting for me to get introduced to how that organization operated and I was quickly hired by the Exec. Chef. I was placed in the party department and began to expand my craft. I failed to realize the good fortune in its fullness, at the time, as that department allowed all the team members to work a steady shift 90% of the time. We were on the 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. shift. Employees could use the hotel gym that included a sauna. There was an employee cafeteria where we could eat for free.

With the goal in mind, to never turn down an opportunity to learn, I soon found myself also working as cocktail waitress, a couple nights a week, in the hotel bar. This gave me some very nice additional income and taught me more about good customer service. When I would work a shift in the bar, I would get off work at 4:30, grab some food, maybe even hit the gym, and then change from one uniform to another, starting a shift starting about 7 p.m., and work until the bar was dead quite or ready to close at 3 a.m. Afterwards, I would take a cab home, nap, and come back to work at 8 a.m.

This hamster wheel kept on turning for about a year and a half. I enjoyed it. I like talking with customers, I especially liked the extra cash, and I was single and living alone with my cat, so I didn't need a good work/life balance. I needed the money and I was, and probably still is, a adrenaline junkie. I was young and able bodied so the industry opened up for me and gave me as much as I thought I could handle.

With age comes wisdom, and aches and pains. I got married at 27 years old and was immediately pregnant with my eldest daughter. At that time, I was working in the social service arena, and that job was rewarding and wonderful, as I could adjust my schedule for the needs of the pregnancy. I had PTO hours and a standard 40 week, so I often worked 10 hour days so that I could have a 3 day weekend often, giving me some needed downtime. The pregnancy changed a lot of my career habits. Being a parent made me make different choices about how, when, and where I worked. I love being a chef but the 80 hour work weeks were too difficult to maintain while parenting small children. I wanted to parent them myself, we didn't have the aid of extended family members, as some do, for childcare. I was the mommy and the wife. I wanted to be these things so I had to make changes in the way I worked to do it.

I think it is sad that I had to find alternative places to work ,and use my skills, so that I could take care of my life and those people in it. So I worked for a homeless shelter, then a church organization, then as a grocery store bakery department manager, a teaching and demonstration chef, a pastry cook at a university, and lake dinner cruise company, all so I could have an adequate family life, and even so I was sacrificing more than mothers that had a standard work week. My career as a chef was diminished, slowed down, and almost derailed. I lost my connections, I had to use differing skills because working in a production kitchen requires too much time and physical endurance. If I hadn't make the choices that I did, I would have kids that I hardly ever spent time with when they needed me the most.

Some male chefs do not put their careers on the back burner like I did, and some would say it is easier for the guys to do this than us ladies. I have never been a guy but it does seem likely. Chefs do often get divorced and are all work and all play. The habit of chefs to unwind after a huge long day is to go to a bar and unwind. There is usually a spot where the whole crew goes and shut down the bar. Heavy drinking, smoking, and some drug abuse are all present in this lifestyle. In order to handle the stress and chaos, in order to keep going for 18 hours or more, in order to get up and do it all again the next day, in order to handle the chauvinism, the racism, the misogyny, the demanding customers, and all the big egos, many of us turn to chemical assistance to get them through it all. Some who do this can find it ruling them instead of them controlling their life.  

I love my career, I love what I do, I love serving my customers, and I love teaching these skills to others. Now that I am a lot older, as my eldest is now in college, and my health is a super bumpy road, I once again found a need to move away from the love of my life, a professional commercial kitchen. When I began I wanted a great big career, and company ownership, but also wanting a family meant something had to be sacrificed because the industry didn't have the ability for me to do both.

The chef life is as complex as some of the finest meals and most people have never seen what is happening on the other side of the kitchen doors. I have had relatives shame me that I couldn't attend this or that event because I was working. I have been accused of lying about my need for their help because there is no way that I needed to work a 18 hour shift. I have had the argument with an upset child about the recital I missed because I didn't get off work until 8 p.m. I now teach kids after school and therefore I don't finish up until 7 p.m.

Think about this: whenever you want to party, whenever you want to eat, whenever you need to celebrate, that's when chefs need to work. We work weekends, holidays, late days and early mornings. We are not the bank teller type of folks and working an 8 hour shift leaves us feeling like we are forgetting to do something more. Work/life balance in our world is a quick way to stunt your career unless you do something other than production work.

I am not the only writer talking about this subject, check out this article: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2016/02/29/why-working-restaurant-industry-can-hard-your-mental-health/NaqWdSHvKJtZQCoberbLjP/story.html

Oh goody goody...

This weekend Chicago hosts one of my favorite conventions, the International Home and Housewares Show at McCormick Place! This convention is the place to be to view all the new innovations in kitchen wares, laundry aids, pots, pans, measuring tools, shopping carts, storage solutions, packaging, cooking demonstrations, baking ideas, decorating tools, gardening new products, and just about anything that you would need to use around the house.

This annual show runs from 3/5/16 to 3/8/16 it hosts over 2,000 exhibitors with everything from Contact Paper to kitchen knives and cutting boards. I will be broadcasting from the show floor on Saturday and Sunday afternoon on our podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/giantforkandspoon so tune in and hear from our C-CAP team members and students. If you can, come on down and meet us in person. Here's the ticket information: https://www.housewares.org/show/register-plan.

This event helps to support our educational culinary program, Careers through Culinary Arts Program, http://www.ccapinc.org/, we will be working the booth, along with their fabulous team at Harold Import Company, http://www.hickitchen.com/. The support that comes from Harold Import Company make our teaching efforts possible so we invite some of our students to work the show and help to feed the clients that stop-by the booth.

Also, there will be a fundraiser event on 3/6/16 where our students from several of the CPS high school's culinary programs will be serving up their unique food fare for our guests. https://www.ccapinc.org/locations/chicagobenefit2016/.

These efforts help to endow our students with the skills and knowledge that will take them into their professional chef careers. C-CAP conducts an annual student cooking competition and awards the winners with scholarship money to attend culinary school.

I can't wait to share all of this from the floor of McCormick Place. Hopefully, I won't have any signal issues and will be able to go live on the air, if not, I will tape and broadcast a bit later on. It's going to be a long week but the excitement of all that is shinny, new, and inciting to chef's everywhere will be at my fingertips to explore.

Oh boy!

Where are the Minority Chefs?

I have worked as a chef in Chicago for over 20 years and I have always worked with Hispanic, Black and Caucasian chefs, more Hispanic than Caucasian, and always mostly men. There is no shortage of Hispanics working in kitchens all over the city, cooking a wide range of food stuffs including Sushi.

Food television is not as full with minority chefs as the kitchens happen to be, there is a sprinkling of Black chefs, and not much more in way for Hispanic. Why is this?  We are doing the heavy lifting and earning the skills to make things pop, fry, and sizzle, so I know having the skill isn't the problem. Yet in still, the Italian chef, the White Southern chef, the French chef, are all the standard image of what a chef is, and most of the time they are male as well.

While we may not be able to lift as much weight as the fellow, we do hold up our share of the work in a production kitchen and I would like to see more representation of our efforts. There is no shortage of food outlets that are black run and often black owned in a city like Chicago. I have served dignitaries that were surprised at the amount of minority representation at the venue, and expressed as much.

While the average black population in this country is about 13% of the overall population, we do make up a much higher number of working chefs in this city and our Hispanic compadres may actually make up a bigger percentage of the kitchen staff. It would be nice to see more of us in the media as chefs. Whenever there is a cooking show, television series, or movie about chefs, there is a whitewashing of the kitchen, unless they are in the kitchen of an Asian restaurant, then the whole staff is Asian and does not speak English.

Am I asking too much? I don't think so. And while waiting for the media to catch up to our reality, I won't be holding my breath. And I am not the only one asking the question.... http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/black-chefs/

In this article, they mention not only that there is a rise in minority enrollment into culinary schools but that there is a lack of managing or executive minority chefs. So in outlets where a multitude of different people work together, few of them are in lead positions.

Are we Jim Crow kitchens? Are we continuing prejudices in our industry? Or am I expecting to much? Isn't it accurate to expect to see a shift in the kitchen management and media representation reflect the populous? We are graduating and training up fantastic chefs of all races and genders so how long, or when, will we see a superstar minority female chef? I am not saying that their isn't any to use as inspiration, Carla Hall comes to mind, but I ask who else?

Michelin Star Rating System

Most people in the food business has at least heard of the Michelin star rating system, however, most probably don't know its purpose or history. From time to time, I will hear culinary students wish to make the attainment of owning a Michelin star rated restaurant one of their career goals, but often they don't fully understand what it is that they are setting their sites upon. To wit, I always ask them what it means and how they plan on achieving this goal.

I personally never set my sites on this benchmark. My career goals are smaller in scope but never too small to be significant. I have always thought of myself as a work in progress, I strive to achieve progress everyday, to be better tomorrow than today, while hoping to become a owner of a nice bakery. I love food exploration and education. I love to occasionally expand my talent and knowledge while keeping up to date on the industry and in touch with colleagues who have helped me along the way. I had to teach myself how to work with fondant as it was not a medium that was available while I was studying my craft. I took to television and online tutorials to figure out how the medium work and some tricks and tips.

Chicago is a very fabulous city to work in food as we mid-Westerners have always taken pride in our food scene. This city is among the most segregated cities in the world as most folks cluster up in neighborhoods by ethnicity, but at the same time we have such a wide list of diverse groups that you can find all sorts of food offerings to satisfy your cravings. Mexican, Puerto Rican, Chilean, Brazilian, Thai, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Chinese, Polish, Irish, Italian, Egyptian, Palestinian, Indian, Middle Eastern, Japanese, Russian, Ethiopian, and I am sure I have not named them all. Chicago has its issues but we here often commune with each other plate by plate.

If you think you have heard the Michelin name before but it didn't have anything to do with food, you are right. Michelin stars rating system began with the Michelin tire company. The owners of the tire company wanted a way to encourage long road trips because the more worn out tires, the more sales the tire company could earn, makes sense. So they thought about what people would need in order to drive longer and longer distances. They concluded that a traveler would need to know two very important pieces of information, where they could sleep comfortably and where they could eat. So around 1900, they began issuing star ratings for restaurants to highlight excellent locations to visit.

In American history there have been 173 stars awarded, a small number over the last 116 years, and in that list of American stars, Chicago has only been awarded 22. Earning a Michelin Star can dramatically change the way the world looks upon your restaurant and its chefs. These ratings can literally push your efforts into the stratosphere and adds your name to the list of the most accomplished in your craft.

Is having this as a goal as a student a good idea? I will never ever discourage anyone from striving to be their absolute best, however, I do tell students to get a plan in place to make this dream a reality. 'How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.' Do your research, find out how the chefs before you have earned their stars, figure out where you should study to give you the best odds of earning one, find a great place to intern in order to get some hands on experience with a great chef, look into who invests in restaurants and may want to help you open your own doors after a long period of study, figure out new ways to reach the gourmet audience, understand your skills well, be honest with yourself about where you are is light of where the heavy hitters are, know your audience, seek answers about what your limitations are. Every chef must, not only figure out what others can teach them, also understand what tasks they do best and what work they should leave for other chefs to do as no one chef can do everything perfectly.

Just getting in to a culinary program and graduating can be hard to do for some students. I have seen some who were cocky going into a culinary training program and washed out before completion. I have also seen chefs graduate from a study course with enormous egos and confidence in their skills but got a wake up call at their first real job in the industry as others chefs ended up deflating that ego because they didn't know what they didn't know.

In the last few years, we have witnessed a enormous boon in the number of colleges that a chef can study. The popularization of food related television has made our jobs more attractive to the common watcher. And while thousands of kids, instead of a few hundred in years before, actively seek a place to start their food careers, not all programs of study are equal. Some interns that I have had the pleasure to work with don't all finish their education with the same amount of skill, ability, knowledge, and experience as all the others.  Hell, some do not possess the right personality traits to survive in a professional kitchen.

No matter if you want to swing your bat in the big leagues or if you want to be a small business owner, DO YOUR RESEARCH. These careers do not materialize over night nor are the dropped in your lap because you have a culinary education. The restaurant business is VERY competitive and the amount of time you need to put in at work to become the best chef you can be is HUGE. This industry seldom allows you to have a good work/life balance, especially in the beginning, and a chef never stops learning. Once a chef becomes proficient with producing the master sauces, they still don't have mastery of the yeast bread, for example. Customer demands change all the time and the food outlet that is the hottest ticket in town today can have a empty reservation book tomorrow because the food or diet fad has changed course.

Work hard, study hard, never stop learning, and dream big. BUT, do your research, write a plan, rewrite it often, make it plain, and plan, plan, plan. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. It is a fool that doesn't do their homework before jumping into the pool. Is it shallow or deep? Is it clean water or contaminated? Are there rocks at the bottom? Be deliberate and sure of what you are shaping before the sculpture collapses.

Here are some links that may help you investigate the Michelin star ratings: http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-michelin-guide-2014-10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michelin_starred_restaurants#United_States

Food v "Food", Part 1

One of the major themes in my teaching to our young folks is that I constantly challenge their idea as to what is food and what is "food". I began this after watching them eat all sorts of garbage, listening to them talk about what they like to eat, and then seeing the deficits of understanding about nutrition. When you talk to kids that cannot identify that margarine is not butter, don't eat vegetables, drown their food in hot sauce, and never ever ask what is in this food... there is trouble brewing. A very large portion of the population that I teach just eat what they like and they never give a second thought to what they are consuming, while childhood obesity rates raise.

 

I teach them how to read a nutrition label, show them that vegetables aren't scary and can be very tasty depending on how it is prepared. I challenge their tastes by making them at minimum sample the dishes we prepare, make them look at what they are eating and why. It isn't easy work especially since the come to my class believing all that we are going to do is cook. If it were up to them, they would work in my class as if it was a cooking club, but its not, it's a culinary class. If it were up to them, we would only cook those things in which they are already eating regularly. The difference between a cooking class and a culinary class is very similar to the difference between food and "food".

 

I am fully aware that lots of food choices that are made in the households, in which my kids live, are done so with economy and convenience in mind. We Americans have totally bought into the idea that food must be cooked quickly and if you are in a lower economic rung the cheaper products tend to win the race to the shopping cart. Lots of our citizens are quick to spend a lot of money on clothes but not a lot on food. This is backward thinking, as clothes wear out quickly and go out of style, but your health is critical. I too have to consider my economy when purchasing, I buy some convenience foods, very few, mainly because I am not home for dinner 3 to 4 nights a week so the cooking duties fall upon my kids at least a couple nights a week. However, understanding what you are exposing your health to buy the constant consumption of these are risks most of us cannot afford. All of my children cook, nothing too fancy, for my middle school and high school kids, but my college kid does quite well, as she has had much more training.

 

Kids don't think about health and nutrition often as they have those perfect metabolisms and digestion that keeps up with the junk they consume. I often ask them what if the aging process begins to break down your body at a young age because of what they eat?

 

The populations that I teach are made up of inner city minority kids who's families are dealing with members that are impacted by cancer, hypertension, diabetes, glaucoma, drug abuse,  immobility, and early death. What they are more concerned with are the drug overdoses and deaths from gun violence that they face daily. I have talked to my kids and heard about the reasons they skipped attending class due to being in the hospital visiting their siblings and loved ones. They tell me of how many funerals they have had to attend and when asked questions about life longevity they tell me that they are not concerned with living to 100 because they are expecting to die before they are 30. It's easy to not think about your  health when you don't think you will survive very long, so why not eat and do whatever you enjoy today because tomorrow may never come.

 

So, there I go into the breach attempting to change their view of not only what is food and what really isn't food but also trying to change their world view through cooking and teaching. I speak to them about their life goals and dreams as well as their diet. I convey to them the impacts of poor diet don't just show up on the inside, but these things affect their appearance and their future. Basic nutritional information and health are done every week along with recipe comprehension. I am a firm believer that it isn't their fault that they don't know these things. I am a firm believer that you cannot give someone else something that you don't have. A great number of their parents either don't have time to teach them these things or don't know enough about the subject to teach them to their children. The notion of eating whatever is cheap and accessible is costly to your health. Anytime that you can go to the store and buy a 2-liter of soda pop for 99 cents but the same amount of juice or water is 4 to 5 times the price.... something is off.

 

I tell everyone if you cannot read all of the ingredients on the label then you might not want to eat that product. Whenever you leave control of your health and nutrition up to a corporation, you are already in trouble. The one and only purpose of a corporation is to make money. They make decisions not based upon what is best for the consumer, they make decisions based upon profit. If a natural item cost five cents per unit and a artificial substitute costs 3 cents per unit, the corporation will used the chemical substitute to gain a bigger profit margin.

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These artificial things do not create the same reactions in the body as real food does, and if you are around enough, you will see how the FDA and researchers will prove them to be harmful in the long run and it's use will then be stopped. But what about all the people that consumed these chemicals for years and are possibly suffering the after effects? Wouldn't be easier to select the natural food options and not suffer any side effects? I want to see my kids live long long lives full of joy and not short lives filled with discomfort and disease.

 

Any food that has multiple multi-syllables  chemical names and are high-up on the ingredient list should make you take pause. If you don't know what it is, then maybe you shouldn't be eating it. Can you find those items in your kitchen? Why are they in your food? Corporations make it difficult to make good choices. Their marketing campaigns, packaging, confusing labeling, hidden sugars, cheap ingredients, market saturation, are pervasive and target your kids.

 

A large percentage of your average citizens do not fully understand how to read nutrition labels.  The first thing that everyone should know is that the list of ingredients is listed in order of amount from the highest quantity to the least. In other words, if you are reading the label and the first ingredient listed is sugar then you know right away that is isn't a healthy item to eat. Secondly, look at the serving size on the package. This is one way the corporation tries to fool the consumer into believing that the item isn't too bad for you. A small package of potato chips is commonly consumed by one person, but the manufacturer may use the serving size as 4, for example, that way, if you aren't paying close attention you can believe that the bag is only 100 calories when it actually is 400 calories, deceiving. I also encourage folks to Google the chemical names listed to see their purpose, possible health issues, and perhaps why they are used. Knowledge is power.

 

Last year was the first year in American history that consumers spent more money in restaurants than in grocery stores. That is huge news to both the culinary industry, retail food store, and the medical community. Our families are not growing, harvesting, cooking, hunting, or controlling the most important aspect of their health, food!

 

NAACP ACT-SO

Today is the day of our NAACP ACT-SO Image Awards Viewing party. This is a new fundraiser for the branch. We decided to host this viewing party after the lack of African Americans nominated for the Oscar's this year. The racial divide doesn't appear to be closing. 

As the board Secretary, for the Chicago South side branch, I have been lending a hand, preparing and grooming our competitors for regional and national competition. Our esteemed journalist, Vernon Jarrett presented his concept for an Olympics of the mind in 1976 and in 1977 the NAACP Board of Directors adopted his resolution and became the national sponsor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Jarrett 

ACT-SO sustains approximately 200 programs nationally. Over the past thirty years, over 300,000 have participated in the program. Our mission is to reward and recognize African American young men and woman for their scholastic and artistic excellence. We strive to honor, prepare, recognize, and develop the talents in our under-served community. http://www.naacpconnect.org/pages/act-so-history

Every year we do a lot of fundraising because this is a golden opportunity for our young people that they may never get to experience otherwise and we do not charge the participants, or their families, the expense of travel and accommodations to compete nationally. All of our efforts throughout the year is focused upon getting our kids ready to win prizes and scholarships and usher them into a illustrious college career. Thirty two categories covering categories of STEM, Business, Visual Arts, Humanities, Performing arts, Dance, and my personal favorite, Culinary Arts.

I began my involvement two years ago when my oldest child, Jacqueline Alexander, competed in the photography category. She worked during her Junior and Senior years in high school and went to national competition both years. The work we did with her did prepare her very well, not only for ACT-SO but for the other work she did in school and for the other avenues she explored for scholarships. This year my other daughter, Victoria Alexander, is competing in a music performance category, a visual arts category and a short story category.

Eligible students are 9th - 12th grade, they can compete in up to 3 categories and can compete every year until they have graduated high school. Jacqueline is still involved with the program as an alumni, mentor, and youth ambassador in her Freshman year of college. 

I am proud to sit on the board, and I am a proud parent as well. If you are interested in supporting our good cause, our young upcoming leaders, please come join us tonight and/or send a donation by way of purchasing a ticket to our event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/naacp-chicago-southside-act-so-presentsimage-awards-viewing-party-tickets-20877805077

We do lots of events, both online and in real life, to raise the funding needed to take our gold medalists on the South side of Chicago, to our national conference. We hope to send a larger contingency this year than last year, we hope to recruit more and more of our young people into competition, and we hope to be the lightening rod that electrifies their futures.

  

Art is....

Art is many things, takes many forms, expressing itself throughout every realm. Perhaps it is easier to say what isn't art than to try and define it. For me, in many cases, art stops being art when it gets co-opted and turned into advertising for mass media consumption.

Agree or disagree, I am okay with how you see things. I'm not okay with not being respected because when someone's art isn't valued very often neither is the person respected.  Ever since the Oscar nominations were announced this year the conversations have sprung up everywhere about why there's a lack of minority actors and other filmmakers on the list.

While you might not be invested emotionally in this conversation, or can understand the protesters views, it does effect much more in our culture than you may think. A person's art, painting, music, sculpting, dance, and food, will outlive the artist and may even become an immortal part of them. Cave paintings, unearthed pottery and artifacts, Escoffier's legendary cooking methods, Michelangelo's art, invention, and poetry have stood the test of time.

But what of the art, science, invention, and music of the non-Anglo-Saxon? Art is universal, it transcends language and cultural norms, it is the best of ourselves manifested, a monument to our existence. I find it so valuable of an expression that my life revolves around it and is filled with it. My husband is an illustrator, myself a pastry chef, my friends all create some type of art, architecture, and science. I am an active board member for the NAACP ACT-SO Southside of Chicago Scholarship competition, my two youngest children are musicians, I have three professional musicians in the family, and two professional comedians. To me, a life without art is like living in a all white room with too much light and no sight, color, or sound, unbearable.

As the board Secretary, I assist our all volunteer board and staff prepare are high school age kids for competition. We conduct a regional competition and our gold medalist are then taken to nationals, free of charge, to compete amongst more than 700 kids from across the nation for college scholarships. My job, well one of my jobs, with C-Cap (Careers through Culinary Arts Program) also has a high school scholarship competition specifically for upcoming chefs.

Culinary arts is the combination of applied chemistry and art. The higher the level of the artistry the more it is considered fine dinning. Many people watch culinary television but don't really understand what it is that we chef's actually do. There still seems to be some elitist thinking from other professions that makes them look down upon the work that we create, while at the same time they seek out our work to consume. Cutting the art from cooking kills the lifeblood of the work, stifles the chef, kills their expressionism and creativity. Not all food is elevated to artistic levels but almost all of cooking has a creative spirit, some chefs dance with their spices and food combinations like a jazz musician on ice skates while others play it safer.

Art is a simple and pure expression of humanity and ignoring one type while prizing another is damaging the souls of the artists that created the ignored art. Not everyone likes the same type of art or the same artists but what I am referring to is the systematic exclusions that happen in some art circles. No each his own but know that my art has a value just like your art does without question.
 

For-Profit College Collaspe

In the recent past, there have been a lot of colleges and universities that have sprung up all over the country and also online. Some of these were a simple extension of an existing program but many of them were, in fact, a for-profit organization model. Colleges and universities traditionally do and can make money but are mostly under a not-for-profit classification due to the social benefits to the students and the community at large, they are similar to charities around the world, in this manner.

Higher education began within churches in the middle ages where students could enter a monastery, for example, to learn printmaking, languages, transcription, medicine, evangelism, or law to name a few. The educational edict then were expanded to educate more than just the people pledged to a lifetime commitment to the church and most of the early educators were those who had been apprenticed under the teachings of elders in the church.

For-profit schools sprang up all over the country in a recent boom and often filled in a gap that was left after many trade school closings.  These schools often were easy to enroll into and the registration process was more centered upon a student being approved for financial aid loans instead of having qualifications for the course type.  The end results left some students with a large amount of debt and not a lot of opportunities to use the training received.

The advent of for-profit higher educations began to unravel under scrutiny due to unfulfilled promises made to the students via job placement outcomes and educational credit transfer issues. Since these particular organizations were not in a charity classification, the organization could charge students tuition amounts in rages that weren't always equivalent to other programs.  However, they could be challenged to prove their outcomes just like other companies, and that is what has been bursting the bubble and many of these educational centers are closing.

If Kraft sells a cheese and claims that it improves your eyesight then the government has the right to make them prove their claim or be fined and sued for flause advertising. These types of action has been taken with the for-profit colleges resulting in school closures.

Le Cordon Blue is closing their US locations. As of January 2016, they have stopped enrollment and will close the doors completely by September 2017. In 2013, the schools, 50 locations globally,  settled a class-action law suit by former students who claimed that the diplomas they received didn't hold up to the promises of leading them to high-paying restaurant industry jobs and transferable college credits. This trend happened in many industries like automotive, nursing, medical billing and coding, beauty and cosmology, and paralegal programs.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-cordon-bleu-closing-1218-biz-20151217-story.html

Roots and Wings - Mentoring the new generation

For about a year or so now, I have began teaching kids culinary skills at a high school and at a youth center. The age groups are 5-8th graders and 9-12th at a CPS high school. Along with that work, I have been working with the NAACP ACT-SO South side of Chicago Scholarship program for the last two years and I now sit on that volunteer board as the Secretary after helping out when my eldest child was a competitor.

While I had anticipated doing some mentoring, and hoped to build into my business plans to find a way to develop an internship, I did not think that I would be, at this point of my life, doing as much as I am for and with kids. I have not yet finished raising my own children and now I am mentoring many more.

After a loss of position and a downward turn in my health, I was grateful for the needed time to investigate my medical problems. A return to working near 20 hour days for a business that was simply providing a hourly wage, making others much richer, and me only slightly better off, didn't seem possible or practical. I am not the same hardworking chick I once was and when the opportunity came to try my hand at teaching culinary, instead of only producing large quantities for service while my health worsened from the stress of the job, I accepted.

Both populations of kids have their associated issues of behavior, which is different for each group, but they have never done anything outside of the typical actions of their age groups. Pre-teens and teens have the prerequisites of talking too much, listening too little, short attention spans, easily distracted, thinking only about a response to questions instead of listening to the information given, and let us not forget the attention-seeking actions that express need for attention and acceptance from peers, adults, and members of the opposite sex. All that aside, let's talk to their needs for stability and the need for dreaming big.

The kids in my classes, and others to whom I speak to often, either have big dreams of their futures or none at all, it seems. Leaving them to either desire to do the impossible or misunderstanding that nothing is possible. I haven't seen much of a middle ground with these kids. While some wish to fly on wax wings too close to the sun, others are too scared to make attempts.

Every dreamer needs a good dose sense and solid foundation and every bird scared to leave the nest needs a firm push outward to test their wings. My high school kids are learning much more that culinary skill, if they attempt to pay attention to lecture and conversations, as I spend time teaching life skills, nutrition, household management, diets, social commentary, current affairs, and what else seems important at the time. Food involves aspects of culture, socialization, economy, mathematics, applied chemistry, art, tempting of all our senses, and transmitting care, love, and survival.

No matter what a young ones' desires to do with their years, grounding them in understandings, wisdom, and careful practices is doing them the service of your knowledge about life in our society. But be careful not to plunge their path into utter darkness and fear, so that they never attempt flight for in doing so, you steal the life blood from the innocent. It is not easy to strike a balance, give wise council, and fair warnings to individuals that think they know everything, hard headed, and stubborn. But to fail, or refuse to try, lending your experience to them so they may avoid the potholes and pitfalls is a sin. Failing to do your duty to inform the next generation leaves them to reinvent the wheel again without diagram or Allen wrench to assemble that which they bought at Ikea. Sad.

Too many wish only to complain and too few are willing to help; which camp is your tent pitched in?